Manufactured Home Parks - Posted by Steven Johnson

import · February 27, 2007, 7:48pm

Posted by Steven Johnson on February 28, 2007 at 12:00:09:

Thanks Dave,
After I posted my question, I got my book out and read about the different types of construction. I guess I got confused and afraid maybe I do not know what to look for when I checked the yellow pages and noticed 753 manufactured housing Parks and commmunities and only 70 mobile home parks and communities in Michigan. I guess I have to get out and visit the parks and determine just what type they really are. By the way, a couple of weeks ago I found on my computer an electonic version of your 65 page book, “Growing Your Food Chain.” Everything I have read that you wrote was always very clear and thorough. Your postings on the ANN forum were what made that forum worthwhile. If you ever make available your book on business notes, let me know. I want to buy a copy. I’m am a fan and hope to meet you in person some day. Keep up the great work. I will try to find a portfolio of MH notes you’ll want to invest in.

import · February 27, 2007, 7:48pm

Posted by Steven Johnson on February 27, 2007 at 20:48:47:

Today, as opposed to the traditional MH communities, there are many manufacutred home parks where homes are towed to site much like the traditional MH, but they are in two pieces assembled together at the parks. They do not look like the MH as I think of one. Are these still much like MH and are they sold similarly?

import · February 27, 2007, 10:17pm

Re: Lego-Land! - Posted by David Butler

Posted by David Butler on February 27, 2007 at 23:17:17:

Hello Again Steven,

The “Making Money With Mobile Home Note” course material you mentioned in one of your recent posts over the last day or two describes in great detail, the various constructions styles in the manufactured home industry. It also describes in detail the several types of property classifications that encompass the bulk of MH lifestyles.

To be sure - while I have no idea for what your thoughts are regarding the “… look of MH”, in general, modular housing tends to look more like site built housing. But both Modular homes, and many double and/or triplewide HUD Code homes (manufactured homes)
are transported in sections, to the building site - on truck beds (modular), or on their own wheels and non-removable steel chassis (HUD Code manufactured home). The home sections are then attached together by local contractors.

Also beware of your nomenclature - the MH industry as a whole, in an attempt to improve its overall image, adopted the phrase “Manufactured Home Community(ies)” as a euphemism for “Manufactured Home Park”, over the last 15 years. While these two are viewed as meaning the same thing - the confusion comes in when even some experienced folks also refer to “Manufactured Home Subdivisions” as “Manufactured Home Community(ies)”. And many of the upscale MH Subdivisions look like MH Parks - making things clearer than mud!

So you always want to be aware of the main difference - does the owner of the home own the land the home is sitting on (not as a park owner necessarily, but as an individual MH unit homeowner)? Or, is he renting the space his home sits on, from the park? If he owns the land, and it is a MH Subdivision, for all intents and purposes, it is essentially “real property”. The same thing holds true if the home is attached to private property, and both the land and the home are taxed by the County Assessor as real property.

If he owns his home, and rents space in a park, the home is his personal property (still taxed unfortunately, but on a different basis).

If he owns his home, and leases private land, or even if he is sitting free on the land (even if he owns the land); if the home hasn’t gone through the formal process of becoming “affixed” to the land under the same owner, the home is still personal property.

How manufactured homes are sold essentially depends on the property classification - is it real property, or is it personal property? And… you will tend to see modular homes more in the classical real estate application, than you will find located on rental space in MH parks - in which case, the sales process is slightly different.